Interdisciplinary Workshop: “Meteora: A Unesco World Heritage Site”

The interdisciplinary workshop “Meteora: A Unesco World Heritage Site”, organized by Princeton University under the aegis of our Academy, took place between the 4th and the 11th of June 2023. A group of 20 undergraduate and graduate students from Princeton and graduate students from 4 Greek university (University of Athens, University of Thessaly, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and University of Crete) were welcomed by 4 Meteora monasteries (Monastery of the Transfiguration, Varlaam Monastery, Roussanou Monastery, and Saint Nicholas Anapausas Monastery). Besides enjoying the incomparable natural beauty of Meteora, they followed lectures by 8 professors at the exemplary facilities of Kalambaka Library. The lectures focused on topics as diverse as the history of Meteora, the monasteries’ relations with the Slavic world and the Ottoman administration, the “Cretan” School of painting, Western medieval art in Meteora, material culture and environmental history. The students visited the katholika of the aforementioned monasteries and their museums, as well as examine manuscripts from the Great Meteoron collection at close quarters. We hope that this educational and research activity signals a new era of extroversion in Meteora and an opening to the wider scholarly community.
We thank the monasteries and the Library of Kalambaka for their hospitality, the professors and students for their enthusiasm!
(Images 1 and 2: Ioannis Papachristos)